Eleanora E. Tate

Happy New Year! Here's my next column, from the paw of Shaka Zulu:
Last fall Ole Gal decided she needed to smell salt air, so of course I did, too. I hadn't smelled that kind of air since she and Old Guy and I'd gone to Fort Fisher dog years ago.
She and I had lost Ole Guy last spring and we missed him. One day he was with us, and the next day he was gone. I'd sniffed for him everywhere. Ole Gal seemed to know where he was. She had held my muzzle in her hands and talked and talked to me. She said Ole Guy had died.
I wasn't sure what that meant, but Ole Gal and I have been very sad ever since. I'd wait with my head on my paws for his van to come home and go but the only time it moved after that was when Ole Gal drove it.
I've tried to get Ole Gal to play ball with me and go for walks so we'd feel better. It's been rough.
We needed to get away for a spell. We took off for Ocracoke Island and Bodie Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina to see if that would help. Since I was a puppy I'd dreamed about seeing a huge black and white skinny building like the one I ended up seeing on Bodie Island, but I didn't know what it was, and why it was meaningful. Come to find out that it was a dog's dream come true.
I should have been the one to drive the van, though, because when Ole Gal drove she also talked on the phone, ate, sang, and got lost. Oh geeze! I had to hang on to anything I could snag my teeth and claws on just to stay on the back seat whenever she made a wrong turn.
Ole Gal drove us onto a oily smelly car boat thing, and then that car boat thing took us right out onto the water. It lifted us waaaay up in the air, then dropped us waaay back down. My eyes and my gut went jibbity jibbity waay up in the air, and way back down, too. I got so sick that I crawled down off the back seat to the floor of the van. Didn't bother Ole Gal. She was talking on the phone.
We finally reached the shore. Thank you, Dog Star! I dragged back up onto the seat so I could keep Ole Gal on the right road.
In time I saw my dream's black and white skinny thing in the distance. How could that be? I stuck my muzzle throughout the window to get a better look and smell. My snout quivered with excitement. Was I seeing my lifelong dream?
When Old Gal stopped the van and opened my door I couldn't help myself. Head up, ears and tail straight out behind me, I flew across the wet marshy ground. I shot across the yard toward that black and white skinny building.
Now I finally knew what it was: IT WAS THE WORLD'S TALLEST FIRE HYDRANT! Instead of being red and white, it was black and white in my dreams, and black and white in real life now, of course, because I'm color-blind!
When I reached my beloved fire hydrant I sniffed, and sniffed and sniffed it. If I could have wrapped my legs around it and hugged it, I'da done that, too. And then I fulfilled my dream. I cut loose with the longest stream of pee I'd ever produced to mark my spot. When I finished I had to sit down and rest.
I saw Ole Gal standing by the van, leash in hand. She could have come over and marked a spot for herself, too, if she wanted. There was plenty of room. But I guess she knew that this was my moment.
After a few more sniffs and a few more markings, I trotted back to her. She hooked me back to my leash, then took that picture of me.
I felt a lot better. I fulfilled a lifelong dream. Ole Gal had taken a fast, wind-driven ride on the beach in a truck the other day. I think that ride fulfilled one of her dreams. At any rate they'll have to do for now for us.
I'd always wanted to take a hot air balloon ride. What about it, Ole Gal?
Copyright 2010 by Eleanora E. Tate

Hi, Dog readers.
I've been calling, telephoning, emailing, writing letters, twittering, faxing, barking -- the Old Dog way -- and even passenger pigeoning messages to Bo, the new White House puppy. But he doesn't answer!
We know that Bo's his name. We know that he's a Portugese water dog. We know that he's a puppy. And we know that he hasn't answered me!
We don't know whether he's been to obedience school. We don't know what he eats. And we don't know whether he goes to the spa, gets his nails trimmed with that new, painless nail trimmer, or where he sleeps.
Shaka's (Shaka-a-Leg's) Suggestions:
1. Be a dog. You're not the Secretary of State, you're not an Ambassador. You're a dog. That's a special designation.
2. Lick your people's hands, cheeks and almost anywhere else. People love it when dogs lick them. That's a kiss, in other words. Humans love kisses. But don't kiss em on the mouth. That's nasty.You don't know where your people's mouths have been!
3. Wrap them around your paw. How you do it doesn't matter. It's a dog thing.
4. Don't pee or poop or drag your behind on the floor. Sure, you have people who pick up and wipe up after you, but it's just not cool. And if First Momma Michelle finds pee or poop on the floor, dude, you're in Big Trouble.
5. Give them love. When the girls need you to help them with homework or to snuggle with; when Big Momma Michelle needs you to sit quietly beside her while she's thinking over strategies; when President Obama, the most powerful man in the world, wants you to get the ball -- especially when he can't get anybody else to do what he wants them to do -- get the ball, Bo!
That's all I got to say. Peace out.
From the paw of Shaka Zulu.
Copyright 2009 by Eleanora E. Tate

Bubba's Boot
Notes from the Paw of Shaka Zulu (Shake-a-Leg)
Happy New Year 2009! Yeah, yeah, I know I'm late but I'm a busy dog. Right now I'm trying to clinch an interview with the new White House First Dog, but doggone it, Barak and Michelle, Malia and Sasha haven't chosen him or her yet. I got my claws crossed that it'll be a lab, of course.
So many folks have asked about Bubba's boot that I had to go ahead and write about it and show it. Anyway, Bubba was in Zebulon, NC last May and I got an up-close, dog's eye view at that boot. Bubba was standing in the back of a 1954 or '55 pickup truck, stumping for his wife Hilliary. He had that big boot strumped up on the top of the side of the truck, flapping his lips. Eleanora clicked a picture real quick before he moved that boot.
I got a good sniff of that boot when he did. Things wafted in the air, see. WHOOOOOEEE! "Where have you and your boot been, Bill?" I said that to myself, you know.
Lots more went on but I'm saving that for my memoirs.
Anyway, all hail the new President Barak Obama! Meanwhile, wonder what the new dog's name might be? Hmmmmmm...
Copyright 2009 by Eleanora E. Tate

Notes from the Paw of
Shaka Zulu Shake-a-Leg
OOOOOO where am I? HOWWWWWLLLLLL.
Ouch! Yikes! Where's my right front paw? They cut it off! No, wait, it's under all this sticky grey stuff wrapped around my paw under this sock thing.
Oh geez. All right, my eyes are clearing up. I remember now. I was about to flop down at Old Gal's computer a while back and begin my first column when this possum scent hit me reaally hard, wafting into the window from the barn.
I galloped out the kitchen door and down the steps to the barn door. I woulda torn the door to pieces but Ole Gal held me back while Ole Guy got it open. Man, I flew in, with possum smell everywhere,
"C'mon outta here, Beady Eyes, trespassing on my property! Kick your tail!" I was bouncing to the left and to the right, snapping and growling, but I couldn't get to the varmint. He was under the floor boards.
While Ole Guy tore up the floor boards Ole Gal stood by with her hoe. You gotta watch Ole Gal when she's got that hoe. She can cut a hole in the ground faster than I can dig one.
Anyway, as soon as Ole Guy pulled up the floor boards I shot right to that possum, snatched him up, ran outside and flung that dude up in the air. The possum, not Ole Guy.
Possum hit the ground kind of hard. It didn't move. It had a heart attack and died.
That's when I noticed that I'd torn my upper claw clear out of my foot. Ole Guy and Ole Gal noticed, too. Ole Guy grabbed me up and took me somewhere that smelled like hamster poop.
Next thing I know, here I am, waking up with a big bandage around my paw and this dumb bottle ring around my neck. I can't lick! What'll I do? I can't write my column the way I want to, either.
Oh no. Here comes Ole Gal with a pill. I went to Dog Obedience School, so I know things, see. She's gonna stick this pill in my mouth and I'm gonna spit it out. She's gonna stick it back in and I'm gonna spit it out. Well, this is gonna take a while.
I'll be back.
Shake-a-Leg
Copyright 2008 by Eleanora E. Tate